Shadow War
by Stratusfied247
Summary: AU -The sequel to Welcome to the Dark Side. The people behind the treachery of Barrett, Slater and Summer Rae are still out there and they're tired of waiting. They are making their move, and it's going to be up to the operatives of Shield to save not only their bosses and their jobs, but their own lives.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed Welcome to the Dark Side. This is the sequel. I hope you enjoy this one just as much. For reference, this first chapter volleys back and forth between two different scenes that are happening at the same time. To distinguish them, I have put the Paul/Trish parts in bold italics and the Randy/Stacy/Miz parts in regular print. Enjoy!

* * *

"_**That was a complete waste of our time. Why did we take this meeting again?"**_

"_**Because, Trish, even a waste of our time gives us intel, and the intel we got from this is that there are still people in our business who don't realize that there is a price to my patriotism, and that price is very high."**_

_**Paul opened the town car's door and Trish slid in, scooting over to the far window. She began speaking before her partner was even inside. "Are we passing this one on to the Secret Service like all of the others?"**_

_**He grunted as he dropped his considerable girth down into the car and closed the door. To the driver he said, "Back to the airport." He waited for the car to move before turning to Trish. "Oh yeah. These people will find somebody willing to take the job for that price. They won't be as good as us, but they might get lucky."**_

_**Trish groaned as the car moved slowly through the streets. "I swear, we deserve a finder's fee for passing these idiots along, and we should get one hell of a tax break for passing the information on."**_

"_**They leave us alone, girlie," Paul said as he pulled out his phone. "Office," he said into the speaker, then to Trish he said, "There's more than one reason we don't take jobs to take out the President of the United States." He winked at her and said, "Why do you think the fee is so high?"**_

"_**Yeah, but we did take the job for the Senator," Trish pointed out to him.**_

"_**The Senator was different," he told her. "The Senator was an asshole. Besides, I don't care what they say. You'll never convince me that wasn't a government contract." He paused as the other line picked up. "Stacy! Good, you're there. He there yet? Okay, you two talk to him. We're on our way back now."**_

The eyes on him were uncomfortable. The space between his shoulder blades itched, and he had to fight against the urge to scratch. Randy turned his head to the side and sneered. He didn't know the guy who recoiled from his look, and at the moment, he didn't care to know him. He didn't really give too much of a damn to know any of the new people in the installation. He wasn't all that sure he'd be around that long, anyway.

The only thing Randy could be sure of was that they weren't going to kill him. Paul would have never let him out of the dungeon if he weren't meant to live. Randy woke that morning to find a suit hanging behind his door, a slip of paper in the pocket of the jacket. The paper told him two things. One, the code to get back up to the main floor. Two, that he needed to get his ass up to Heyman's office as soon as his eyes were open.

Randy showered and dressed. The suit wasn't too ill-fitting. The pants were loose around the waist, but he was able to belt them into place. The shirt and jacket hung on his frame, his body smaller and more lean than it had been when he was last in the Alpha home base. He recognized the suit. Trish had bought it for him on one of their missions, a last minute black replacement for the navy suit that had been torn when he dodged a car that had come barreling toward him in the street. As a joke, she had inked "Watch where you're going" on the jacket lining.

Stepping into the hallway had been easy. Walking to the elevator, not so much. He had been tempted to go down to the torture rooms, to look inside and see if there was anything left of Summer Rae. He knew there wouldn't have been. He had watched Trish walk out, her white suit covered in blood. An hour later, he watched the clean-up crew go in. He hadn't bothered watching for when they left. He knew that the room would be spotless again, hosed down and disinfected, waiting for the next person who needed to be decommissioned.

He'd always wondered if there was something off about him, about all of them, that they did the things they did, and reacted to them the way they did. The things that excited him probably shouldn't have brought such a thrill, and the things that riled up his emotions, more than likely, should have scared him. Trish didn't look at him as she made her way back to the elevator, but he had looked at her. He had stared at the bright red against the stark white, and the love for her fought its way to the top again. It wasn't necessarily the blood, itself, as much as the fact that the blood was there at all. She had killed for him, for his loss in her life.

_She still loves you, you fucking idiot._

Randy had, in a way, brainwashed himself. He had to convince himself that there was no love there, that there was only hatred and betrayal. That made it easier for him to accept that they had been apart the last three years because of him. If he let himself believe he was wrong, he had to face the fact that he could have been with her, that they could have been figuring this out together.

"Randy!" He looked up at the familiar voice. Stacy looked down at him from Paul's office. Mike stood behind her, hovering, like he was waiting for an attack. "Up here!"

He groaned. Randy ran his thumb over the metal face of the dog tag tucked into his pants pocket. He remembered when he first gave them to her, the way her blonde head had dipped slightly toward him when she realized what he was doing, how her eyes sparkled when she looked at him.

Randy sighed and made his way to the steps, then up, taking the long trek up to Paul's office. Halfway up, he turned his head to look up at Stacy. "What are you doing here? Is Paul in there?"

She shook her head. "He and Trish had a meeting in New York," she told him. "They should be back tomorrow. Paul just called and said that they're heading to the airport, now."

"Then why am I coming to Paul's office?" Randy reached the top of the stairs and grunted as Mike moved closer to Stacy's back.

"Because we need to talk," she told him.

Stacy didn't move closer to her husband, but she didn't tell him to take a step back, either. His relationship with Trish wasn't the only one strained by his return from the dead. The four of them used to be thick as thieves. The top two women and the top two men, the couples that everybody looked up to, of course they had found themselves in each other's orbits. Once Randy and Mike had stopped grappling for first place and Mike conceded that he was always going to be a step behind Randy, they got along just fine.

But, he wasn't one step behind though, anymore, was he? Now Mike Mizanin was the top dog, the ace number one operative. He went out on the jobs that, three years ago, he would have only been given if Randy was already working another mission. Where Trish and Randy used to be second in line only to the man himself, now it was Stacy and Mike, second to the man and the woman. Despite their competitive streaks, Randy and Mike had once been the best of friends, and now, Mike was hovering at his wife's side, waiting for his former best friend to throw a punch or pull a weapon. My, how the mighty had fallen.

_**Traffic stopped. **_

"_**What's going on with you and the kid?"**_

_**Trish groaned. "Could we not, Paul? Please?"**_

"_**Or we could, because you've been avoiding being alone with me the past couple weeks."**_

"_**Because I knew you'd bring it up." She sighed and looked out the window. "He says he believes that we didn't try to kill him."**_

"_**And?"**_

"_**And nothing. And that's it. He still looks at me like I'm a fucking traitor. It doesn't matter how many people I decommissioned for him or the fact that he actually saw me fucking crying. He still looks at me like that." She paused and closed her eyes, her lashes soaking up the tears that were starting to fill her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, the view out the window was blurry. "But sometimes…"**_

"_**Sometimes, he looks at you like he loves you."**_

"_**Yeah."**_

_**Paul groaned. "I told you not to get involved with him, didn't I? I told you—"**_

"_**You told me to be careful, and I was. How the hell was I supposed to know—" Trish stopped as she caught movement out the corner of her eye. She turned her head in time to see the driver opening his door. "What the hell?"**_

_**The driver got out of the car and slammed the door behind him. A second later, the locks clicked. Trish reached for her door. Paul did the same. It didn't matter. Neither of them was going anywhere. The doors wouldn't open, wouldn't budge. Trish climbed over the seat, but there was no point. The engine was off and the keys were gone. **_

_**Trish whipped her head around. "Paul…"**_

"_**Somebody knew that we would take this meeting," he said.**_

"_**And that we wouldn't take the job. They low-balled us on purpose."**_

"Paul needs you back in the saddle, Randy," Stacy said as she took a seat. He had expected her to sit down in Paul's seat, behind the desk, or at least for Mike to take the seat. Everybody wanted that chair at some point, right? But neither of them sat in it. Stacy sat down in one of the guest seats on the opposite side of the desk. Mike stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

Stacy put her hand out, offering him the chair beside her and Randy shook his head. "No thanks, I'll stand." He looked over to Mike and grunted. "And you can chill the fuck out, man. I'm not about to slug her again."

Mike grunted, not saying another, but let his hand slide down. Randy was willing to bet he was still touching Stacy's back, that he had just moved his hand enough to give the illusion that he was backing off. Whatever, Randy didn't care.

He stood off to the side, his back against his wall. Randy looked to the side, out the windows of the office. "I'm not ready," he said.

"Are you afraid?" Stacy asked him.

"Fuck no." He turned back to her, his eyes flashing. And Mike's hand crept back up over her shoulder. Randy took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Look, it's not like I'm scared somebody's gonna grab me again or something."

"Then what is it?"

There was something about Stacy that made him feel like it was okay to talk. She'd always been that way. It was the soft smile that she could put on, the look of innocence and pure caring that she emoted when she tried. Randy was well aware that Stacy Keibler (Mizanin) was one bad ass bitch. Hell, before Mike came up on them, she'd been giving Randy one hell of a fight. But, sometimes, she was just this sweet thing that didn't match the sharp throwing knives she kept in a sheath around her thigh when she wore dresses.

"I'm out of practice," Randy said with a sigh. "I didn't spend the last three years on an extended mission, Stace," he told her. "I spent it surviving. I wasn't looking for intel or staking out a mark. I was just surviving."

"You don't lose those kinds of instincts, Randy," Mike spoke up. Randy looked to Stacy's shoulder and saw that Mike's hand had moved back down her back. "So you lost a step. You won't get that step back unless you get out there and do a job."

"And maybe," Stacy said, "getting back out into the field will get you and Trish back on track somehow."

"And if you're going to talk about Trish, we stop this now," Randy said, pushing off of the wall. "I don't talk about it with her. I sure as hell won't be talking about it with the two of you."

_**His hands were on her arms, yanking her into the back. "Paul, what are you—" Trish stopped talking as she felt the heat on her legs. Her eyes flashed to the front of the car and she saw the sparks, the fire starting. The car shook, and the flames grew.**_

_**Bomb-proofing was a wonderful thing. It encased the two of them in extra sheets of hard, sturdy metal, protection against the blast, or what would have been the blast. In a way, it slowed it down, giving enough of a warning that the people inside would have been able to get out. The bomb had to have been placed beneath the front of the car, because that's where the fire started. Were it not for the thick, metal plates, the front of the car would have been ripped off. Instead, the first explosion only rocked the car, as if the front half of the car gave a hiccup that rose it off of the ground and started a spark.**_

_**Paul knew that there were people out to get him, out to get both of them. They used one nationwide service, a specialty service run by a former Navy SEAL. All of his cars were bomb-proof, and he only took the clients who were most likely to be blown up in one of his vehicles. He was going to have to thank Road Dogg for his life the next time he saw him. If he still had a life to thank him for, because it wasn't over yet.**_

_**They were trapped inside of the car, with the flames coming slowly toward them. Paul wrapped his arms around Trish and laid her down on the seat, pressing his body down on top of hers. He wasn't an idiot. Whoever had planted that bomb wouldn't have planted just one. They would have known that the car had bomb-proofing, and while one bomb definitely wouldn't be the end of them, a series of them could possibly do the trick. And well, if the bombs didn't kill them, it was entirely possible that the fire and smoke inside of a sealed vehicle with thick glass windows that were nigh unbreakable just might do the trick.**_

"_**Paul?" There were tears in her eyes, stinging and burning as the air grew hotter and the fire came closer to them. "Is this it?"**_

"_**Maybe, darlin'."  
**_

"_**This isn't supposed to be it, Paul. Not before—" **_

_**She stopped and he knew what she was going to say. "Before he could forgive you."**_

"_**You think he'll forgive me if we die in here?"**_

"_**I think he'll fuck up the world if we die in here, darlin'."**_

Kaitlyn burst into the room, Seth on her heels. Both of them were out of breath, their eyes wide with shock. Randy turned to them, glad to have his attention off of Stacy and Mike, glad to have something to talk about other than Trish.

"Knocking," Randy said with a grunt. "It's a lost art."

"Shush!" Kaitlyn put a hand up then shook his head. "We were monitoring frequencies in New York. Police radio bands, stuff like that."

Mike stepped up. "Trish and Paul are in New York."

"I have satellite footage," Seth said, "of the driver getting out of the car. He got out three minutes before…"

His words cut off and Randy waited for him to say more, waited for him to finish the sentence. He waited for anyone to finish the sentence, and when no one did, he stepped toward the two techs and shouted, "Before what, goddammit!"

_**Paul held Trish tightly and they whispered the words of a prayer together as two more bombs went off and the car flipped into the air, surrounded by flames.**_


	2. Chapter 2

At least she didn't turn that bright ass light on. It was bad enough she came bouncing onto the bed. If he didn't sleep so light, she would have jolted him awake. As it were, she managed to land perfectly on his stomach and send a grunt whooshing past his lips. The chick weighed nothing and a half, but damn, that little ass felt like a ton of bricks when it landed on his stomach unexpectedly.

Dean peeked an eye open, then closed it again. The sight of AJ excited didn't do much for him in the way of surprise. She was almost always excited. Now, if he'd seen her face looking more grave, he would have sat up instantly. And when the words came out of her mouth, he understood more than ever that his girl gave a whole new fucking meaning to crazy cakes.

"Somebody blew up Trish and Paul in New York."

AJ's voice was the same as if she'd just said that daddy got her a pony for her birthday. Dean opened his eyes and stared at her face. His eyes didn't take as long to adjust to the darkness as other people. Within a second or two, he could see the shining excitement in her eyes. She wasn't smiling, but her mouth was wide with shock.

Dean groaned. "The fuck did you just say?"

"I couldn't believe Seth hadn't already told you! He and Kait were watching it, monitoring cameras and stuff. They have the car exploding on video!"

"Yeah, well, Seth doesn't have a death wish, like some crazy bitches I know around here." Dean groaned and ran a hand down his face. "He knows better than to wake me up."

"Oh, come on. This is totally worth waking you up for." AJ put her hands on his chest and bounced her ass up and down on his stomach. "Get up! Stacy and Mike are calling a full facility meeting, conferenced in with all the other facilities. We don't even know if they're dead or alive."

Dean grunted. "Probably dead. Bombs do that to people, ya know."

"Not necessarily." AJ slid off of him and Dean thought he was going to get a reprieve. Yeah, like that was ever likely. AJ tossed the covers off of him and grabbed his leg, yanking on him as she said, "Paul always takes a bomb-proof car. All kinds of extra protection, just in case something like this happens. Paul knows that people want him dead."

AJ was strong for her size, sure, but not only was Dean so much bigger than her, he also had no fucking desire whatsoever to get out of the bed, and that meant no matter how hard she pulled on his leg, his ass was staying planted until he wanted it to move.

"Dean, come on! This is big! We're on like, high alert! All field operatives have been recalled. All upcoming missions have been put on hold. That never happens around here! Business first! I heard the last time that happened was when Orton went missing, and who knows if that's actually true. Just—come on, already! Get your grumpy ass out of bed, mister!"

AJ dropped his leg and folded her arms. Even in the dark, the pout on her face was as plain and clear as the sound her Converse made when she stomped against the floor. Dean smirked and gave her half a grin. How did someone so entirely batshit crazy also manage to be so damn cute? If Dean used words like adorable and precious, he would have used them to describe his little hell kitten.

"Fine," he said, "I'm getting up." Dean tossed his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. After so much time sleeping on the prison floor, he had really gotten to love this bed. It was nothing special, your run of the mill mattress, but it was comfortable, and the blankets didn't itch.

As Dean stood up, AJ scurried to the foot locker at the end of the bed and tossed it open. A second later, he was hit in the face with a pair of boxers. "Really, AJ?"

She shrugged. "You're moving too slow," she said. "And no, you don't have time for a shower. Go pee and then get dressed. We need to get to the meeting."

"Yes, mother," he said, rolling his eyes. AJ didn't dote on him, didn't baby him, and even now, it was less babying and more angry mom with an unruly teenage son. Dean shot her the bird as he walked naked into the bathroom to relieve himself. It only took a minute, but when he came back out, hands washed and water splashed on his face, clothes were laying on his bed. At least she hadn't turned the light on.

Dean dressed quickly, throwing on the black cargo pants and t-shirt. He put on his socks and boots, and half a second after he'd tied the knot on his boot, AJ's hands were around his wrist, yanking him up from the bed.

In the hallway, the light was bright and Dean winced against the white pain. People were moving all around them, hurrying to find out the news. Some had obviously been dressed for hours, their clothes still somewhat neat after a long day of working in the offices. Others were like him, had been pulled out of the bed and forced to dress quickly. The wave of people surged forward, all moving in the same direction. The wave parted as the crazy duo came barreling through, AJ in the lead.

AJ took him to one of the big conference rooms. It was standing room only, except for the two empty seats waiting in the very front row. Of course, they would have to sit up front. Dean grumbled as she pulled him forward. He plopped down in the seat beside Roman. AJ sat down beside him, her leg bumping against his as her frenetic energy made her body bounce.

"Calm down, will ya? We already know what they're gonna say."

"We do not know," AJ said, whipping her head to him. "We don't know that they're dead. We don't know who's going to be in charge. There's so much that we don't know!"

Dean wasn't sure which way his chick was leaning. Was it the expectation of hearing about a grisly, firey death that got her so jazzed? He wouldn't be surprised if the details of the charred bodies got her going. Or was it just the unusual nature of it that set her off? Because, honestly, did any of them ever expect something like this to happen? Maybe to one of the peons, but to the bosses? Hell, there was a betting pool going around as to whether Heyman was the devil incarnate, the devil himself, or just one of his minions sent up from the pits to wreak a little havoc on the world.

Dean rolled his eyes at AJ and leaned in to Roman on his other side. "What have you heard?"

Roman didn't look at him, kept his eyes staring forward, as he said, "Just what Seth knows. There were three bombs. Car was bomb-proofed, so the first one didn't do much but jump the front end of the car. The other two went off in rapid succession, one after the other. Turned the car into a fireball and flipped it."

"How many bodies?"

"Seth said when they pulled Trish and Paul from the car, they didn't put sheets over 'em. Heyman was pretty bad, though. Said there were so many burns, he could barely make him out."

Dean grunted. "Think they're dead?"

"Seth didn't say anything."

Dean turned away from Roman and looked up at the dais. Seth and Kaitlyn sat to the side, behind where the Mizanins stood. Seth looked nervous. Did that mean they were dead and he was anxious about the reaction of the people milling into the room? Shit, Dean hated not having all the information.

He chanced another look at Roman. The big man stared straight ahead. He looked like this was just another day in the office. He had the same expression waiting to hear if his bosses were dead that he did debriefing after a mission. Dude was straight up cold-blooded, and once again, Dean was grateful that he was on his side.

"Alright, people!" The low murmur of voices in the room trickled to a stop as Mike stepped forward and clapped his hands. "Nobody else is going to fit in here, so you're just going to have to filter this back to the rest. Here's what we know so far."

Stacy stepped forward and said, "Trish and Paul were ambushed on their way to the airport today after their meeting. Thanks to the bomb-proofing in the car, they are both still alive, but they're not great. Right now, Paul is covered in third degree burns, and Trish is in a coma. Neither of them can be moved, so we're sending a small team to check on them and safeguard them until we can get them back here where we can watch them. Until further notice," she said, "Mike and I are taking over."

Mike said, "Until we have more information about what is going on, all missions are put on hold. We've already started talking to our contacts, and we have a limited amount of time that we can keep these contracts so we need to find out who was behind this, and quick."

A voice from the back of the room called out, "Does this have anything to do with Orton coming back from the dead?"

"Oh, fuck you." Dean hadn't even noticed Orton when he came into the room, but he saw him now as he pushed out of the shadows of the corner. No wonder the guy used to be the number one man in the agency. He was a fucking shadow. Dean never missed a person in a room. "Of course, it has to do with that, you idiot."

"Randy, please," Stacy said. She turned to look at him and gave a small shake of her head before turning back to the others. "Look, everybody, we're doing whatever we can to find out what's going on as soon as possible. Right now, every facility is on high alert. We don't know if this was just a vendetta against the boss or if it was an attack on us. What we do know is—"

Dean's attention left Stacy and Mike as he caught movement out the side of his eye. He turned to see Kaitlyn stand up and walk to the side, her hand going to the Bluetooth device in her ear. Her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. The longer the call lasted, the more she started to pale. Her eyes widened. Whatever she was hearing wasn't good.

When the call ended, Kaitlyn turned around and walked up to Stacy. She started to whisper and Dean stood up. "Oh hell no. If shit's hitting the fan, then we all hear it. You don't get to do your super secret group shit with all of us sitting right here. What the hell was that about?"

Sounds of protest built to a rumble as the other operatives in the room agreed with Dean, and it grew louder as the news made its way to the latecomers who were crowded in the hallway. Kaitlyn looked to her new replacement bosses, and both of them gave her a nod.

Kaitlyn turned to the room and sighed. "I just got a call from Beta. Someone tried to hit Punk when he was heading to a meeting with some contacts. He survived, and he's not injured, but his facility is in lockdown."

"So that pretty much tells us it's not just an attack on Trish and Paul," Mike said. "This is an attack on all of us." He straightened his tie and jerked on the lapels of his jacket. Dean watched his hands fidget then fall to his sides before he said, "Looks like we're going to war, people, and this time, we're fighting for ourselves."


	3. Chapter 3

"The old man put the best on this one, man, don't worry about it." Hunter Hearts Helmsley was a big man with broad shoulders. In body mass, he was much bigger than Randy, but the leaner man was pretty sure that, if he didn't move the fuck out of his way and let him get where he needed to go, he could drop him on his ass pretty damn easy.

Not that he had anything against Hunter. Before shit went down, they were friends. Hunter was the one that suggested Randy to Paul, telling him about this kid he'd run across on his way out of the military. Yeah, he and Hunter were tight. But, right then, Randy had a job to do. More importantly, Randy had someone he needed to see, and Hunter talking to him was slowing him down.

"Uh huh. Don't give me that look, like you're about to try to jack my jaw. I mean, you can give it a shot. We're in a hospital, so when I show you why that was a bad idea, at least they can patch you up." Hunter ran a hand through his hair, his fingers slipping into his blonde mane at the roots and gliding through the thickness until it fell out at his shoulders. "Now, look, man, I know what you're wanting to get to, or should I say who you want to get to."

"You don't know shit," Randy said, his voice a low growl. A nurse passed them in the hall, moving the air at Randy's back as she moved. Involuntarily his head turned toward her, and just as involuntarily, he sneered.

"See that shit?" Randy's head spun back around to Hunter, who only grunted at his sneer. "You're growling at nurses, man."

"Do you have anything useful to say to me? Because I'm not hearing shit that's worthwhile coming out of your mouth right now."

Hunter rolled his eyes at him. "You know what? I heard what happened to you, and since I'm glad you're not dead, I'm gonna give you a pass. One pass, you feel me? This is it. It's the only pass you get, so from now on, I expect you to keep your fucking mouth shut and let me finish with what I've got to say."

Randy's eyes narrowed, but he listened. There were very few people in the world, post-military, that could make Randy shut the hell up and stand to attention. Fucked up, too, that most of those people were in that hospital.

"You good?" Hunter asked him. Randy shook his head and Hunter grunted. "You don't have to be good. You just have to be quiet, long enough for me to fill you in."

Randy took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He knew he wasn't here just to visit, to tell Paul that Mike and Stacy were holding down the fort and to hold Trish's hand while she laid in the bed. He was there to find out anything that Paul or Trish might have said during any time of consciousness. He was there to find out exactly how many more hits had been on their lives since they came to the hospital. Randy was there for intel, and he could get it, as long as he shut the fuck up and listened.

Hunter laid it down for him, quickly and sufficiently. "This is one of those jobs that brought us out of the office. Personal protection on this one, man." That was saying a lot, considering that the main men of Evolved Securities hadn't come out of the office to personally stand guard for years. "Dave's on Paul," Hunter said. "Chyna's on Trish. We have this hospital locked down. Nobody's getting in or out of here."

Hunter looked over his shoulder and jerked his head. Dave Batista, a big man, former Secret Service, came out into the hallway, his sunglasses perched on his nose. In a tailored black suit, the only thing that distinguished him from his time in service to POTUS was the lack of a tie and earpiece in his right ear. He gave a nod, which Randy returned, then looked at Hunter. The two men said nothing to each other, but a conversation was had nonetheless. Dave removed his sunglasses, allowing Hunter to look him in the eyes. After a few moments, Dave took up a sentry's stance outside of the hospital room, and Hunter pulled Randy down the hall, a few steps away from the room.

Randy had still not gotten to see Paul, and he was starting to think that instead of just giving him the rundown, Hunter was trying to avoid letting him actually see what had become of Paul. Shit, was it really that bad? The satellite images had been blurry enough that he could take that burn talk with a grain of salt, but if Hunter was saying it was that bad…

"Look, man." Hunter put a hand on his arm. "You're not gonna be able to see Paul right now."

Randy stared at him, ran a hand down his face, then looked at him again. "The fuck are you talking about?"

"Burn unit."

"Wait, wait, what? The fuck are you- Why the hell is Dave standing outside of an empty room, then? You said he was on Paul. Why the fuck isn't he over there, being on Paul?"

"Look, man, Paul is jacked, you hear me? First degree burns on over seventy-five percent of his body. Word we got from first on the scene was that he took all of that shit, man. They had to damn near pry his body off of Trish when they pulled them out of that car. She got protection from the bomb-proofing on the bottom, and protection from Paul on top."

"So, he's in the burn unit. Fine, I get it." Randy went forward with his questions, with his gathering of information, because if he didn't focus on that, he was going to get too caught up in the imagery. He was going to picture Trish's body slowly being revealed as they pried Paul off of her. She had been protected, but how well? Were there burns on her face, on her legs? How long had she been conscious during it all? Did she have to look into Paul's eyes as he burned, screaming from the pain?

Randy shook the thoughts away. He couldn't deal with them now. "Why is Dave down here instead of being up there?"

Hunter put a hand at the back of his shoulder and turned him, moving him back down the hallway toward Dave. The room's door was closed now and Hunter turned the knob quickly. He shoved Randy inside the room and closed the door behind him. The room was empty, clean, looked like it had never been used. It sure as hell wasn't currently being used by Paul Heyman.

"Shield has a leak, that's pretty damn obvious," Hunter told him. "Couldn't take the risk of a call getting intercepted, so we went on and put things into place. Ric's got connections with this hospital," he said. "As far as anyone knows, Paul is in this room, right here. He's burned, but not so bad that he needs to stay in the burn unit. Doctors come and go out of here all damn day, and nurses bring food that nobody's gonna eat."

"You said Dave was on Paul. I'm asking you one more time, because you're getting on my damn nerves right now, why is he down here and not up at the unit with Paul?"

Hunter took in a deep breath and held it. His shoulders rose with his inhalation, only falling when he finally let the breath out through his large nose. His eyes closed for a moment, and his head dipped. In a more rational state of mind, Randy would have taken a step back, maybe even apologized for being such a shit. But, he wasn't rational. He was only impatient, and Hunter was taking too goddamned long to give him the information.

Hunter rose his head slowly, his eyelids raising his head came up. "You've got one more time, Orton, before I lose my patience with you." He ran his right hand through his hair, then let it drop to his side. "We had somebody else on this room until about three hours ago, when that guy reported somebody sniffing around this room. I brought Dave down to stand guard, because they think this is where he is, and I know Dave can take a bitch out without killing him, in case we need to interrogate somebody. Ric's on Paul while we test this shit out, and then Dave's going back up."

Randy sighed. "You couldn't just say that in the first place, instead of giving me the around about story?" He ran his hand over his bald head and groaned. "We're getting them out of here, taking 'em back to base."

Hunter shook his head. "Not gonna happen, at least not with Paul. He's too messed up to be moved. And Trish—Man, they're not gonna let her out of here until they can really access her condition, and they can't access shit until she wakes up."

Randy frowned at him. He felt his lip curling up into a snarl, baring his teeth like a feral animal. "The fuck you mean, until she wakes up?"

"Been out like a light since they brought her in. She's up in ICU—"

Hunter said more, but it sounded only like mumbles to Randy as he turned and stormed down the hallway. He didn't bother with the elevator. He took the stairs three at a time, bounding up the steps until he reached the ICU floor. He probably should have stopped at the burn unit, but his brain was focused. He needed to see her. He needed to- He didn't know what the fuck else he had to do past that, but he knew he had to see her.

Randy burst through the doors when he reached the floor and stormed past the nurse's station, moving down the hall. He knew he wouldn't need to ask directions. That woman Hunter had guarding her stood out like a sore thumb, and sure enough, he saw spotted her broad shoulders and jet black hair over halfway down the hall, standing with her arms folded across her stomach. Even her tailored black suit couldn't hide the muscles that cut her up. Randy knew if anybody tried to get in that room that shouldn't have been there, they were in for some serious pain.

He stomped up to her, standing in front of the woman, his arms at his sides, fists curled into tight balls. Chyna said nothing to him, just stepped to the side, leaving Randy with a clear view of the door. And he stood there. Staring at it. Staring through it, the small pain of glass giving him a miniature view of Trish.

She looked dead. From this distance, he couldn't see her chest rising and falling. He saw no movement from her at all. Only the waves of the EEG and EKG machines, silent on his side of the door, showed that she was alive, that there was still life in the woman that he had not only loved more than any other person in the world, but hated just as deeply.

His stomach clenched as he reached out toward the doorknob, a knot tightening in the pit of his stomach. The last time he felt anything like that was when he saw Stacy coming toward him in the Middle Eastern town where she had found him, knowing that he had been caught, that the time had come to run again. And that's what he wanted to do. He would rather turn and run out of the hospital than face what was on the other side of the door. But, goddammit, he was Randy fucking Orton. He hadn't run when Mike and Stacy had found him, and he wasn't going to run from what was in that room.

Randy took in a deep breath and held it. He consciously forced himself to turn the doorknob. His next feat was to push the door open. Those two were fucking easy compared to actually stepping foot into the room. It was slow and painful, forcing his legs to move forward. He thought it would be easier once he crossed the threshold, but no. That only made it harder. It was like he was pushing against a wall, and every step he took forward, the wall pushed him back three more. By the time he actually reached the side of the bed, a thin line of sweat circled his head and slipped down the back of his neck.

This close to her, she didn't look dead anymore. Her brown hair was singed, and he had a thought that she would be pissed when she woke up and got a look at it in the mirror. She wasn't overly vain, but it was the kind of thing that would stick with her, more than the redness of her peeling skin, showing where the heat had touched her face, but not the flames. Trish's arms were covered in netting, the skin beneath patchy and flaking. If that was the extent of her burns, then she was lucky.

She looked like Sleeping Beauty. Fuck, why did he know that well enough to bring up a comparison? Somebody, somewhere, an old girlfriend, he thought, had loved it, and her idea of a romantic evening was curled up watching the prince kiss the princess awake. Randy had rolled his eyes at it, but obviously had tucked away the memory of the scene, because when he looked down at her, he saw her in that fuzzy lighting, and it was almost enough to make him kiss her right then. Because that's what the prince did, right?

But, Randy was no fucking prince, and Trish was sure as hell no fucking princess.

But, still- She looked asleep, and he was bombarded with memories of her sleeping. He didn't watch her purposely, didn't seek out opportunities to watch her sleep. But sometimes, he would roll over in the night, and his eyes would adjust to the darkness just in time for her to roll over, putting them face to face. And sometimes, when he had to get up before her, he would turn back to look at her before leaving the room. When he did that, she was usually on her side, and he only got a glimpse of her bare shoulder, peeking above the covers. But sometimes, she would lie on her back, and that's what she looked like now. The sleeping woman, lying on her back, clueless to the fact that she would wake up alone.

"Fuck," he muttered, twisting his head to the side. He had almost convinced himself that three years on the run, three years of hating her guts had erased all of the love. He had almost convinced himself of the biggest fucking lie in the world. Because looking down at her, he felt the rage of man in love. He felt like pummeling the person who had done this to her, the one that had closed those beautiful brown eyes to him, the one who was the reason that he couldn't wrap her in his arms and hold her close without fear of hurting her. He wanted to destroy a motherfucker and stare into the son of a bitch's eyes as he died, so the last thing he saw before he went straight to hell was the fury in his own eyes.

Randy dug into his pocket and yanked out the dog tags. He had almost thrown them away more than once, but something always reminded him of the three years that they had sat around her neck, the tags nestled between her breasts, occasionally held in her hands when she needed him near. Now… Now, he knew that he didn't want them anywhere near him. They didn't belong with him. He had given them to her and they belonged with her.

The only time he touched her was to reach out and slip the tags into her hand. Trish's skin was warm, and touching her sent a shiver down his spine. He laid the tags in her palm and slowly closed her fingers around them. He leaned down, as if he would kiss her, but that was too much like the Sleeping Beauty shit. He was too afraid that she would feel his lips and actually wake up. That was just too much strange shit for him to take.

Instead, he hovered over her, hoping that she felt his breath against her face as he spoke. "Whoever did this is going to fucking pay, Trish. I swear to God, they are going to fucking wish they had never started this shit." He swallowed, then said, "And you have to wake up by the time I find them, so you can fuck 'em up with me. Ride or die, right, Trish? Two bad ass killing machines?"

Randy watched her, waited for her to move, to twitch her lips or see her eyes moving beneath her lids, but there was nothing. He stood up straight and let out a heavy sigh, then ran a hand down his face. He looked down at her, the woman he loved, but couldn't say when she could say it back. The woman he had loved and hated for the last three years.

He put the heel of his palm to his forehead and held it a moment, before sliding his hand down again, then letting it drop to his side. "Fuck, Trish," Randy said. "Wake up, alright? Just—fuck. Wake up."


	4. Chapter 4

"It's a little bit funny. This feeling inside."

Dean's head rose as AJ skipped into the room, his lips turning down into a semi-scowl. It was just enough pressure to show her his dimples, which was just enough to bring an even bigger grin to AJ's lips. Her Converse squeaked across the tile floor, then came to a skidding halt at the visitors side of the desk. "The hell are you talking about?"

AJ shrugged. "Have you never seen Moulin Rouge?"

"No," he said tersely, "and you're not going to make me watch it, either."

She put her hands flat against the desk and swayed slowly from side to side. "Oh, I don't know. A little bit of Sodium Pentathol and I could probably have you doing just about anything."

An instant look of shock covered Dean's face before it quickly turned into consideration. AJ loved the reactions that she was able to get out of him. Most of the time, he was so laid back and chill, watching everything with the ease of a predator, awaiting the appropriate time and place to strike. But, every once in a while, AJ threw just enough crazy his way to make him sit up and really react. And sometimes, she threw just enough sanity at him to get the same reaction.

AJ knew what they said, that if you know you're crazy, you're not really crazy, but she didn't believe it. She was aware of herself to know that there wasn't something quite right about her. Oh, she may not have been as crazy for cocoa puffs as she led people to believe, but it wasn't all an act. She was off balance enough that the company shrink stopped trying to talk to her. He didn't want to see inside of AJ's head. He just kept her prescription filled.

That was another thing. AJ was cognizant enough to know that she needed the small hexagonal pills that were filled regularly. She knew that they were the only reason she wasn't truly batshit insane. Because she'd been very close to that when Trish first brought her into Shield. Most of the people in there had been rescued from jail, and while yes, AJ was technically a convicted ward of the state, it wasn't from a regular concrete jail cell that she was plucked. She was taken from a nice little facility for the Criminally Insane, from a room within said nice facility that was all rounded edges and free of anything she could hurt someone with. Because they weren't ever afraid of AJ hurting herself. She was a strictly homicidal type of crazy.

"Fine," she said, "I wouldn't drug you to get you to watch a movie," she said, rolling her eyes. "I would just use your greatest weakness against you."

Dean snorted. "And what would that weakness be?"

"Your complete and total inability to turn me down when I stick my bottom lip out super far and give you the most adorable little sad puppy dog eyes in the whole wide world."

Dean rolled his eyes and snorted again, but AJ knew that she was right. With just the right level of sadness, she knew that she had Dean Ambrose by the short hairs. He was a tough guy, sure, and he was a cold-blooded killer, but he was also a human being. And unlike Roman, Dean did actually have heartfelt emotions. Dean could sympathize and empathize. She didn't have to spend too much time with Dean before she was able to distinguish his psychopathy from his partner's sociopathy. There was a very thin, fine line between the two conditions, and that line was blurry as hell, but Dean made sure that he was firmly on the side of psychopath.

Dean groaned, but there was a playful light in his eyes, a brightness that let her know that, no matter what he said, he wasn't completely annoyed at her company, that he might actually even be enjoying it. "I've got work to do, AJ," he said. "Can we get to whatever the point of your visit is?"

A tick in the corner of his lip told her that she still had a little bit of time to play with him before his patience had all run out and AJ got a good glimpse of the Dean Ambrose that most of the company was afraid of. Right now, his lip was just jumping. But, in a little while, the ticking would stop, and his lip would hitch up. She knew when she saw his canine, when his lip rose in a snarl, that it was time to get to the point.

And AJ did have a point to bothering him. She knew that Dean was busy. With Trish and Paul out of commission, Stacy and Mike had to make some pretty important decisions, and one of those decisions was whether or not to shut down all activity. To kill or not to kill, that is the question, and the answer had originally been not to kill, at least for the time being. But, there were people in too deep to pull out now. They were in more danger if they were suddenly called home than they were if they stayed in place. Those covers were so deep that it was entirely possible that whoever was out for Shield blood didn't even know they existed.

That was where Dean came in. In most cases, the most trusted would be people with the most seniority. However, the opposite was the case in Shield. Trish had personally vetted every new person in the last year and a half to two years, and those were the ones that had the truth. They were the ones that Trish and Paul had believed to be the clean, the uncorrupted, so those were the ones that Stacy and Mike gave the most important jobs. And Dean's current job was to tactically go through and make the logical choice of who to call home and who to leave in place. Every Shield base had someone doing this job, and when they made their choices, Dean went through their choices to make sure they were accurate. He already had a stack of files on his desk and, from the look of his computer, a full inbox in his email. Dean Ambrose went from street stalking killing machine to riding a desk, and he hated it. No, he fucking hated it, as those were the words he used when he told AJ how much he wanted to strangle the person behind all of this, just for making him get stuck with the paperwork.

"Well," AJ said as she turned around and skipped across the room, "that brings me back to my song." She found a small stool and ran it back across to Dean's desk, her hands flat on the seat, her Converse sneakers shuffling quickly. She sang again, "It's a little bit funny. This feel—"

"This feeling inside," he said, cutting her off. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. What's this feeling? Gas?"

"It's not gas, dummy." She rolled her eyes as she sat down on the stool. AJ hooked her ankles behind the steel legs of the stool, pushed off from the desk, and spun in circles. She spoke every time she faced Dean. "And my feeling…" Spin. "…is that something…" Spin. "…isn't quite right…" Spin. "…in the land of Oz."

AJ let the spinning slow down and stop on its own. The spinning stopped, but nobody told her head as the world went around a few more times before settling down. She looked up and she was facing the door to the left. AJ turned the stool seat slowly, until she was facing Dean. "Well?" she asked.

"Well, what?"

"What do you think?"

"About what?"

"About my feeling."

"I think it's common sense, Cray J." He rolled his eyes and AJ stuck her tongue out at him. He was the only person who could get away with calling her Cray J. She didn't necessarily like the nickname, but it didn't sound quite so malicious when he said it, thus making Dean the only person would could say it without losing an ample amount of blood.

"Well, a feeling as all I have to go on 'cause I haven't found a damn thing in all the mess I had to go through, and it's making me antsy. It's making me wanna kill somebody, and Stacy already said I don't get to go on any missions right now, and Mike followed that up by telling me I'll get decommissioned if I kill anybody in here without express permission."

Dean's lip turned up into a snarl for less than half a second when she mentioned being decommissioned, but it was enough for AJ to see it. Aw, did he actually care? Or was AJ just his amusement and he didn't want to have to work at finding anyone else that didn't annoy the hell out of him? Either way, it didn't really matter to AJ. It was just nice that she could get that kind of reaction out of him.

His face went slack again, and she could see in his eyes that he didn't care for his own reaction. She could also see the truth, that in the end, he wouldn't do much if she got decommissioned for going on a killing spree inside of Alpha. Mainly because, he knew that she would have deserved it. The only thing that either of them could hope for was that Dean wasn't the one chosen to do the job.

"You went through Barrett's stuff."

AJ sighed. "Yes, I went through Barrett's stuff. And I went through Summer Rae's stuff. And I went through Slater's stuff. And none of them are giving me any leads on where we should be looking. Barrett was good, and I could tell that he was the lead on all of this. If he hadn't already been dead when Orton called in, he probably wouldn't have survived." She sighed again. "I don't know," she said. "I'm getting nowhere, and it's making me frustrated. Worse than that, it's making me serious."

Dean smirked and said, "And we don't want a serious AJ, now do we?"

"Hell no, we don't!" AJ pushed against the desk and sent herself spinning again. The crazy always felt better than the sanity. Because the crazy had fun. The crazy only had memories of the stuff she wanted to remember. Serious AJ had memories long ago, back when she was with people who called her April if they were being nice, and bitch right before they hurt her. Everyone at Shield had a past, and they all had their ways of forgetting that past. Long before she was recruited into Shield, AJ had found her path to ignorance, and she had learned how to make that path more fun than any trip to Disney World.

"If I said I might have somebody that you can kill, would that help get rid of serious AJ?"

Her head popped up at his words, a huge grin stretching her lips. "Really? Are you just funnin' me, Ambrose?"

"Would I do that?"

"Yes."

He snickered. "Yeah, I would do that, huh?" Dean gave a low chuckle, then ran his fingers through his hair. AJ made note at how long his hair was getting and reminded herself to remind him later that he needed to get a haircut. "But, no, I'm not funnin' ya, short round."

"Uh huh. So, if you're not funnin' me, who do I get to kill?"

"I said I might have somebody for you to kill," he told her. "But, going through all of this shit here—Somebody's undercover work is kind of suspicious. He reported back exactly thirty-six hours after Orton disappeared. Then again thirty-six hours after the call that Orton put in. And, oh, look at that! Thirty-six hours after Blondie and the Walrus were blown up."

AJ shrugged. "Could be a coincidence."

"Yeah, and I could be going to heaven when I die." He shook his head. "I don't believe in coincidence, short round. I just believe in patterns, and that's a pattern. Roman's gonna do a little snooping, a little stalking, and if he agrees that this guy is dirty, then he's gonna bring him back here. And if he brings him back here, Legs is gonna interrogate him. And if Legs finds him guilty, well, he won't be useful to us anymore after she gets the information out of him. And you know what that means."

"It means somebody needs to be decommissioned. And I get to do it."

"Exactamundo! Somebody give that lady a prize!"

AJ laughed and spun herself in three fast circles before stopping and facing Dean again. "Alright! I like it! Now, are you gonna tell me who it is that I'm gonna get to play with?"

Dean turned to his computer and hit a few keys before turning to the screen to AJ so she could see the possible traitor's face, then said, "You might have actually come across him before he went into deep cover. Tell me, AJ. What do you know about Michael Cole?"


End file.
